


Kiddy Car Pooling

by AnonEhouse



Series: Starvation Sleep-Deprivation Stories [11]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Daycare, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Gen, Kid Steve Rogers, Kid Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-24
Updated: 2015-03-24
Packaged: 2018-03-19 08:57:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3604176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonEhouse/pseuds/AnonEhouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On Tony's first day at daycare, he meets a tough, little, honorable guy named Steve. They hit it off immediately.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kiddy Car Pooling

(If you are reading this on any PAY site this is a STOLEN WORK, the author has NOT Given Permission for it to be here. If you're paying to read it, you're being cheated too because you can read it on Archiveofourown for FREE.)

Tony wasn't at all sure about this 'daycare' business. He had Jarvis and his nanny to look after him, so why did he have to leave the mansion to let people he didn't know look after him? The novelty of other children might have appealed, but they could just as well come to the mansion, couldn't they? He had explained that very logically to daddy as a waste of the chauffeur's time, gasoline for the limo, plus the added wear and tear on the Rolls. He'd even drawn a chart with crayons. He thought maybe his mistake was making it a pie chart. They always looked 'like you'd pulled the data from your ass'. 

Not that Tony was supposed to say 'ass'.

Anyway, the only concession he was able to get was permission to bring a toy. One toy. He'd settled on his customized Mattel cars playset with five of his favorite cars packed into its red and gold plastic suitcase. It counted as one, because you couldn't see the cars. Smart businessmen take advantage of loopholes.

He looked around the daycare after the chauffeur left and was not impressed. Everything was cheaply made plastic or painted pine, and garish, and while it was clean, it was the scrubbed kind of clean that wore things down and made everything just the least little bit gray, even through the primary colors. There were an awful lot of children, some smaller than Tony, some bigger, but none too far out of the range. There was also a lot of noise. Either there weren't enough caretakers to control them, or running about screaming was an acceptable activity. It wouldn't have been at the mansion. Tony considered whether he wanted to try it, but it seemed rather pointless.

He decided to find a corner no one was using and set up his little town, and play cars. A few minutes looking around the various alcoves and sections showed that there was someone in every suitable place, but one particularly isolated corner behind a bookshelf only had two boys, one at either end of the size range. He was about to offer to share his cars when he heard the smaller boy make a pained noise, quickly shut off. He peered closer. The little blond kid was hanging onto a beat-up wooden truck and the bigger boy was giving his skinny wrists Indian burns. Tony was outraged, but he wasn't stupid, the big kid could beat both of them up. He was stocky and broad-chested.

Just as he made up his mind to come up and kick the big kid in the legs and then grab skinny and run for it, the little kid's grip loosened on the truck and the big kid got it. "NO, Hodge!" the little one yelled, and reached for it, obviously prepared to get the snot kicked out of him rather than give up. 

Tony pushed in between them, babbling about a tray of cupcakes at the front of the room, and how they were going fast. Hodge took off like a rabbit, with the truck held in his grubby fists. The little boy looked up at Tony fiercely. "I woulda' had him."

"We'll get your truck back later." Tony touched the little guy's arms lightly. They looked like they hurt.

"Wasn't mine." 

"Then why did you fight so hard for it?" Tony was puzzled. He could understand not letting anyone take your stuff, but when it wasn't your stuff, why care?

"Because it wasn't his, either. I got it first." The boy wiped at his nose. "It was the last car in the toy box."

"Oh. Well, we can play with mine." Tony got down on his hands and knees and opened his suitcase. It unsnapped and it pulled out panels, and mylar buildings popped up on memory plastic frames until it was a whole little town. He looked up at the blond kid who was wide-eyed. Tony pointed at the red and gold Ferrari. "That's my favorite, but you can have any of the others."

The blond kid hesitantly picked up a white TransAm with red stripes on the hood and a blue trunk decorated with white stars. Tony nodded. "That's a good one. Look," he poked at the car to show that the wheels turned, the doors opened and the hood and trunk both lifted. There was even a silver painted engine. "The engine doesn't work," he admitted, "but it's nice, isn't it?"

"Yes." The blond touched the car carefully, pushing it around the roads with Tony's Ferrari racing it for a few minutes. Then he said, "I'm Steve."

"I'm Tony." Tony took Steve's hand and shook it, like you're supposed to. Steve winced. "Oh! Sorry, your arms still hurt?"

"It's nothing." Steve shrugged. "I've had worse."

Tony took each of Steve's skinny arms in his hands and kissed the reddened skin. "Momma says kissing makes boo-boos better."

Steve blinked and then he nodded. "My momma says the same thing." He smiled at Tony. "It works, they don't hardly hurt at all, now."

Tony was pleased. He really liked Steve. Steve was a nice kid and they played well together, and never even bumped their cars by accident. Just once in a while, on purpose, when they wanted to play Crash. The cars were strong, a little crash didn't hurt them any.

They had snack time together, and shared a banana because it was too much for either of them, and then they sat on their mats next to each other while a lady read a story about a monkey who got in a lot of trouble, but always got out of it again. And then they had nap time next to each other, and Tony thought it was really nice having someone breathing next to you when you slept. It was really nice. Daycare wasn't bad at all.

 

The time went by so fast, Tony wasn't bored at all, and then there were parents coming to pick up their children, and it was confusing, but Tony and Steve stayed tight together. "My mom's coming for me," Steve said. "I want you to meet her. She's always saying I should make friends and not fight so much." He started to hand Tony back the TransAm. 

Tony said, "No, what are you doing? That's yours! You keep it!" Steve grinned and threw his arm around Tony's shoulders. Tony giggled and hugged Steve back.

"Master Anthony?"

Tony looked up. "Jarvis!" He was a little disappointed that daddy hadn't come, but daddy was busy, and Jarvis was really nice. He tugged Steve by the waist. "This is my friend, Steve! Can he come have lunch with us, and play with my trains?" Tony told Steve, "They're great trains. It's an army set! There's helicopters you can make fly off the flatcars, even! And tanks!"

Steve's eyes were huge again. Tony loved that. He wanted to show Steve all his best stuff, just to see how happy and surprised Steve's big blue eyes got.

"I'm glad you've made a friend, Anthony." Jarvis was holding out Tony's coat, so he had no choice but to let go of Steve to put it on. "But Steven must have his own lunch and home to return to."

Steve nodded, but he looked a little sad. "Momma..." Then his face brightened even more than the thought of army trains had made him. "Momma!" he said, pulling Tony over to face a woman who'd come in right after Jarvis.

Tony would have known her anywhere. She had Steve's blond hair, and bright blue eyes, and she was very thin, too. But her face lit up when Steve ran to her and she knelt to hug him, incidentally catching Tony in the hug, which startled him, but it was nice. "You had a good day, Stevie?" she asked, pushing his flyaway hair out of his eyes.

Steve nodded rapidly. "The best! Tony's my friend!" He gave her a pleading look. "He said I could come to lunch and play with his trains. Real trains." 

Steve's mother looked at Tony, and then up at Jarvis, who had his hand lightly on Tony's shoulder. "I'm sure you don't want to be a burden, Stevie. You know I've got to get to work, and I won't be able to pick you up for a long time. Mrs. Murphy will look in on you for me."

Jarvis looked down at Tony and Steve, who were still holding onto each other. "I quite understand your reservations, madam." Jarvis took a card from his pocket. "I am Edwin Jarvis, butler, majordomo, and Howard Stark's right hand man. I'm sure he would authorize transport of any trusted chaperone to the estate." He smiled at Steve's mother. "Tony doesn't have any friends, you see?"

Tony and Steve turned their eyes, all big and hopeful, on Steve's mother. She sighed, and fished in her purse. "My name is Sarah Rogers, and I'm a registered nurse. I suppose we may as well exchange cards. Molly Murphy would gladly give up her soaps to see even the servants' quarters of Stark Mansion."

"I'm sure we can do better than that for Mrs. Murphy," Jarvis said, as he accepted her card.

"Yay," Tony said, bouncing on his heels. "C'mon!" Tony wrapped his arm around Steve's waist, and they ran ahead to the exit.

Sarah smiled. "I don't think we could have pried them apart, anyway."

"Indeed," Jarvis said as he held the door open for Sarah.


End file.
